Fanuilh

by Daniel Hood

  "I've said, I don't sell it; it likes me not."

  "But she frightened you?"

  Startled, Viyescu goggled at him.

  "She frightened you. The Aedile said you looked frightened."

  "Oh," he hemmed, "it was naught; I just—"

  "Did she threaten you?"

  "Perhaps she spoke some in anger, but it was naught, if it please you, she—"

  The apothecary was lying, Liam felt sure; the woman had threatened him, but he did not want to admit it. Liam let it go.

  "I see, I see. I've just one more question for you, then." Viyescu was visibly relieved, and Liam wondered at his change of attitude. His stem, puritanical righteousness was gone, as well as the subtle hinting of their meeting the day before. Viyescu clearly regretted having said—or having begun to say—anything. "Santhract is used only to .. . terminate pregnancies, correct?"

  "Yes, Hierarch."

  "And then only in small doses?"

  "Yes, Hierarch."

  "What if someone was given a larger dose? Could it kill a man, say?"

  Sweat broke on the druggist's brow, and Liam had to try hard to keep calm. What was making him so nervous?

  "Could it?"

  "I have so heard," Viyescu stammered softly. A hot stab of hope and relief went through Liam. He had latched onto something.

  "How much did the woman want?"

  The druggist leaned forward with wide eyes, as though he had not understood the question.

  "I'm wondering if she wanted enough to kill a man," Liam explained.

  "But—but Master Tanaquil was stabbed, was he not?"

  Liam shrugged, as though the question meant nothing. "It doesn't matter, of course—you don't sell santhract; it likes you not, eh?" Here was something much more than he had hoped for, and he could not avoid lacing the question with acid irony. Viyescu shook his head instantly.

  "And of course, you still don't know who this woman is?" Viyescu shook his head again, obviously unwilling now to speak, not trusting his tongue.

  Liam did not care. New ideas crowded out the druggist's worried face, a hundred possibilities spun half out of the few small revelations he had gotten and half out of his guilty need to exonerate Lons.

  "Of course," he murmured. "Thank you, Master Viyescu. Your help will not go unnoted." He turned and left the druggist behind his counter.

  The black line of clouds was noticeably closer but Liam paid them no attention, his thoughts fully occupied with the web of suppositions he was weaving. He ambled out of Northfield back towards his garret, staring with unseeing eyes at the cobbles. Beggars let him go again, frowning at the tall, distracted figure.

  What could the poison mean? And what had Viyescu so upset? It must have to do with Tarquin, or the druggist would not have sent the news to him through Coeccias. So the woman and her poison must be connected with the wizard's death. That was a thorny problem, because if Donoé's story was to mean anything, Tarquin could not have gotten the woman pregnant, and besides, he had been stabbed, not poisoned.

  A thousand new questions rose from that. If Tarquin had not gotten her pregnant, who had? And why was the wizard involved? Could the murderer be a person he and Coeccias had never considered, namely the hooded man who came to the unknown woman's sometime lodgings?

  Too many new questions. The neat fabric of their solution seemed likely to unravel beneath the weight of his new thoughts. And to further complicate matters, he suddenly wondered if Rora might perhaps have been far less innocent than he thought. The encounter could easily have been planned as a sort of blackmail, to try to tum him away from Lons.

  She could not have known he would be drunk and thus vulnerable, but his admiration for her had been obvious. If Coeccias had commented on it, she must have noticed it, and Kansallus had said that she was used to being sought after. What if Lons had sent her there? If he had, it put the guilt firmly on his shoulders.

  "Gods," he groaned, "I've been so stupid."

  There was nothing for it, though, . but to go on trying to clear the actor. Rora might have come to him on her own, unsure of her brother's innocence but determined to protect him in her own way. Again, the possibilities were enormous, and a hundred lines of thought stretched away into uselessness. He and Coeccias had settled, however reluctantly, on an explanation that now seemed simple-minded.

  Looking up, he saw that his feet and his musing had carried him to the street where his lodgings were. He stopped uncertainly at the corner and gazed with mild distaste at the high, dark house and the tiny window that fronted his garret. He thought how much better it would have been if he had gone to Tarquin's the night before. Remembering the house, he remembered Fanuilh. He had given no thought to feeding the little creature and, feeling guilty, headed for the stables.

  The mass of new and complicated questions weighed heavily on him as he rode, and he attempted to sort it out by going over the information he had, and poking holes in it.

  The mystery woman was still looking for poison, and Viyescu somehow connected it with Tarquin's death, and was frightened about something. Lons had not tried to escape, but his sister had tried to turn suspicion from him. The decanter, his treasured decanter with the crossed-out label, suddenly seemed a clue again, unreadable but nonetheless a clue. And the illusion spell Tarquin had marked in his book might hold significance. Marcius had done nothing, but Liam would not dismiss him. Despite his inactivity, he might still fit into the puzzle's unexpectedly wider dimensions.

  All he needed was a way to fit everything together. His mind revolted at the new complexity, somehow feeling that simpler explanations were better. Still, he juggled the pieces around, hoping for a way to clear his conscience.

  He saw the mounting clouds from the beach, and put Diamond in the shed. The wind had picked up, scouring the beach with cold, stinging sand. He let himself into the house.

  I did not think you would come.

  Liam waited until he was in the workroom before answering.

  "I almost forgot. I've been busy."

  I know. Fanuilh's flat cat's eyes and toneless thought stung more than the wind-flung sand. Sleeping with the dancer was not wise.

  "It was the cider," Liam muttered abashedly, unable to meet the dragon's gaze. "Are you hungry?"

  Yes.

  He hurried out to the kitchen and fixed his thoughts on the oven. When the raw meat was ready, he brought it back and laid it silently on the worktable.

  Coeccias thinks the player killed Master Tanaquil, Fanuilh thought after several large mouthfuls. It moved more easily, and Liam wondered how long it would take to recover completely.But you do not think so. Your thoughts are scattered on the subject.

  "That's because I'm not sure now why I think he didn't do it," Liam admitted. He went to the second worktable and picked up the empty beaker with its obliterated label. "I don't think Lons is the sort who would kill, but now I have to wonder if I think that because of Lady Necquer, and because of Rora. That's why my thoughts are scattered. If you'd let me tell you things," he said more strongly, "instead of picking them out of my head at random, this might be easier."

  Even as he spoke, he knew it was foolish. The dragon would know—because he knew—that his thoughts would be scattered whether or not it invaded them. Fanuilh let it pass, putting all its attention to the meat.

  Staring at the beaker, Liam suddenly struck his forehead with his free hand and cursed. It was such a simple question, but he had never thought to ask it.

  "Fanuilh, when did you first see this decanter?"

  Master Tanaquil had it for many years.

  "No, I mean, when did . you first notice it here, on the table? Empty?"

  The morning after Master Tanaquil removed the Teeth.

  "The morning after the woman visited him."

  Yes.

  Liam set the decanter down on the worktable and went to the book of spells on the lectern. It was still open to the spell th
at had caused the Teeth to vanish, and he ran his finger along, looking for a list of ingredients.

  Symbol components, appeared the thought in his head, and he looked over at the dragon, which had its back to him and was busy gnawing bones.

  "What?"

  They are not called ingredients; they are called symbol components, and there is no list. Where they appear in the text, they are underscored.

  Shrugging at the unresponsive scaled back, Liam rechecked the spell, and saw that the dragon was right. After the initial abstract paragraphs came the actual instructions, and several words were underlined: pitch, purified water, a white-hot brazier of coals, and others, some of which he could not identify. But there was no listing for virgin's blood. Disappointed, he scanned the spell again and found nothing, then flipped through the book to the illusion spell.

  There, to his relief, the words "an ounce of virgin's blood" were underlined. He barked a triumphant laugh that brought Fanuilh's head around.

  What have you found?

  "Well," he said, repressing his grin and going over the words of the spell, "virgin's blood is not called for in the vanishing spell, but it is in the one for invisibility. And since the decanter wasn't on the table until after the woman came, we can reasonably suppose that she requested the spelt"

  That does not necessarily follow.

  "Not necessarily, no, but for the sake of argument—"

  It might have been for Marcius.

  "Yes, it might," Liam said impatiently, "but we're not going to work that idea just yet. We're going to focus on this woman."

  It would help if you knew who she was.

  Liam closed his eyes and massaged his brows. "Fanuilh, how is it that you can read my thoughts and remain so impenetrably stupid?" His eyes snapped open and he held his hand out, palm up, to stop the dragon. "Don't answer. Just be quiet."

  In blessed silence, he checked the ingredients—symbol components, he reminded himself—for the spell of invisibility, and then compared them with those for the other spell. Both called for pitch, water and coals, and two of the unidentifiable items from the latter were required by the former. The only difference was that virgin's blood was listed under invisibility, while there were three items underlined in the vanishing spell whose names he did not recognize.

  The theory behind each spell seemed the same; the difference in effect was accounted for by the three unknown components in the more powerful one. Intrigued, he checked the texts with more care. The vanishing spell often referred to a "representation" or "model" as the focus of the spell, while the casting of invisibility centered around a "homunculus" or "mannikin."

  "Fanuilh," he began, but the dragon's thought cut him off.

  Invisibility is usually cast on a person, hence the homunculus; a doll, really. Vanishing is for objects, hence the model.

  It was looking at him, the long neck twisted sinuously over its shoulder.

  "So Tarquin would have had to have a little doll of a person to cast the spell—or could he use this?" He pointed at the model, and Fanuilh's wedgy head shifted to look on the miniature Southwark. No thoughts came for a while, and Liam began to fidget. Finally, a tentative thought snaked into his head.

  He might have. I believe the spell can be cast on an object. Before Liam could say anything, another thought came in. But I am not sure.

  "Of course not," Liam said, "nor am I. But I've one more question. Did Tarquin have a test for Donoé?"

  For her blood? No. He trusted Donoé. He trusted people often.

  "As he trusted Lons," Liam mused. "To take a man's word for that much money .... "

  The player did look like a rich merchant.

  "Yes, yes, but what man—no matter how rich a merchant—will pay that much gold for a woman? Why just take his word?"

  Master Tanaquil was a powerful wizard. He had no need for money—he called the fees he charged "gauges of need." How much someone would pay, or what they would be willing to do, for his spells indicated how much they needed them.

  "So when Lons agreed to 10,000, he showed his need. Now the question is, what did the woman agree to? How great was her need?"

  I do not know. I cannot follow your thoughts on this. They are very scattered.

  "Of course they are," Liam agreed, smiling broadly, already on his way out. "It's a tenuous connection at best, very tenuous." He stopped to stroke the dragon's clothlike scales, and feel the creature arch happily under his hand. "I'll be back tomorrow morning."

  Do not forget.

  "I won't," he called from the hall.

  Do you really think this is important?

  He stopped in the doorway and shouted back. "I hope so. I'd hate to think I came all the way out here just to feed you."

  Diamond safely stabled, Liam went back to his garret to get his writing case and the letter from Rora. He did not really need his writing case. The letter was more important. He did not want it lying around for his landlady to see and, thinking of the way Coeccias had gotten hold of his list of suspects, he did not want the Aedile to find it. They had become friends, to a certain extent, and he was ashamed to think of the things he had to hide.

  His landlady was holding court in the kitchen, ordering the drudge around when he walked in. She smiled broadly and began speaking at once, almost as though she had been expecting him.

  "Master Liam! Uris bless us, you've just missed some gentlemen who came calling for you."

  "Really? Who?"

  "None I'd ever seen," she said, pitching her voice in a whisper that seemed to invite the exchange of confidences. "And they'd not leave their names, or business," she added significantly.

  Liam grunted noncommittally and went up the stairs, glad to frustrate her and thinking of the letter and the rest of the day. There was still an hour before noon, when Lady Necquer had told him to come back. He was not sure if he would bother. First he had to see Coeccias, and find out what he thought, and then he would decide if he could spare the time to go up to the Point.

  With the letter secure in his writing case on his belt, he started back down the stairs.

  "Master Liam," his landlady called peevishly from the kitchen. "The men who're asking after you are here."

  He thought more of her irritated tone than of the visitors she had announced. I really shouldn't go out of my way to annoy her, he thought. She's just a harmless old gossip.

  The man who stood just inside the kitchen door was a stranger, though Liam knew the type from his short-cut hair and the way he smacked his fist into his palm. The Rat stood behind him, and as Liam came off the last step into the kitchen, Scar stepped through the door, his ghastly smile wide and unpleasant.

  Damn, Liam thought. At least they're not armed.

  The three. toughs began moving in, the Rat around one end of the table and the unknown tough around the other. Liam waited until all three were away from the door, and then moved.

  "Run and fetch the Aedile," he shouted at his landlady and her drudge, and ran at the Rat. The drudge, young and smart, dodged past Scar, but the older woman found her way blocked by Scar's widespread arms. She backed away, gaping and goggling like a landed fish.· .

  The Rat was not prepared to be attacked, and Liam hit him twice in the stomach, doubling him over. Liam was surprised how easy it was; the Rat was obviously no brawler. The man he did not know, however, was, and came up behind him before he could tum and caught his arms.

  Scar grabbed the terrified landlady and thrust her angrily at the gasping, teary-eyed Rat. "Hold fast, jack; the woman'll not harm you," he sneered, and shoved past the other man to confront Liam.

  With his arms tightly held behind him, Liam could only kick at Scar, but the bigger man swatted his leg away easily. The man who held him wrenched at his arms and hooked one foot around his, drawing· him off balance. Scar snorted with laughter and waded in, slamming his fists into Liam's stomach with a sound like the thump of heavy sacks.

 
Liam's face mottled with pain and sickness, his sight grew blurry, and he became aware that the man behind him had eaten onions. The strong smell washed over his neck and face.

  Onions, gods, he thought, and closed his eyes against two more punishing blows. Then he felt himself slipping to his knees, let go, and a rough hand grabbed his hair and jerked his head back. He opened his eyes weakly. Scar's face was only a few inches away, and he focused with difficulty on the puckered edges of the man's disfigurement. It was a livid purple, a shallow trench across the face.

  "There's a man we both know of that's not pleased you've been to another man we both know of," Scar said, "and this man fears y'ought to part Southwark soon. Y'understandr'

  He shook Liam's head by the hair he held, which did not help Liam's concentration.

  "I haven't been to anyone else," he managed over the roaring ache that was his stomach and chest.

  Scar stood up and let go of his head, sending him straight to the ground. The stone floor of the kitchen was wonderfully cold.

  "You lie, Rhenford."

  "Aye, and at full length," the man who had held him laughed, and aimed a perfect kick directly between his legs. Liam tried to curl up, but his stomach screamed in protest and he simply lay prostrate. Somewhere in the room, the Rat giggled.

  "Remember," Scar's voice came to him, close to his ear, "part Southwark soon. This day." A rough hand cuffed his ear, but the stinging was nothing compared to his other pains.

  He heard a number of footsteps hurrying out of the kitchen, and then the slamming of the door, but he did not open his eyes. The floor felt good against his burning face, and his muscles would not allow him to move much.

  "Oh, Master Rhenford, what've they done!" His landlady was kneeling over him, tentatively touching the back of his head, but he was aware of it only as an annoyance.

  Well, he thought dimly, at least Marcius has done something.

  Chapter 13

  BY THE TIME Coeccias came bustling in with the drudge, Liam was sitting up on the stairs, hugging his stomach. Mistress Dorcas hovered, pestering him with unwanted attention.

  "You're awfully quick," he said sourly to the Aedile, moving an arm to wave away the piece of steak his landlady was shoving at him, and wincing at the movement.